The Way We Were
by amidola
Summary: There is a consistent sirring and occasional thump that echoes along the shining linoleum of the hospital floor, and yet,all Myka is aware of,is a thorough silence. Picks up after "What Matters Most". Myka/HG, Pete & everyone else.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:**All Disclaimers apply.

**A/N:**This picks up after „What Matters Most". Due to a terrible broadband connection, I still have not seen 4x17 and am sitting in a café, posing as a tourist with a laptop and sipping red wine while posting this. Cheers.

There is a consistent sirring and occasional thump that echoes along the shining linoleum of the hospital floor, and yet,all Myka is aware of,is a thorough silence.

She had always been known as the quiet child next to her exuberant sister Tracy.

She had always been the shy one, the calm one.

There had been something about that innate quietness that soothed her,calmed her, filled her to the brim with the meaning of unspoken words.

Words from books, languages, phrases, famous quotes and phrases.

The small truths and poetry she stumbled upon.

She would gestate the words, turn the phrases over in her mind.

Cherish them, as only a true lover of languages could.

Quietly.

But she isn't doing that now.

There are no words.

And the thought that is shocking her the most is this:

„How to tell Pete?"

They are partners,they are best friends, and she needs to tell him,because she kind of promised him not to lie to him ever and again.

So she needs to tell him, even if Claudia doesn't need to know, but will, eventually.

She will, won't they all?

But she also promised to never leave Pete again, and suddenly a shiver passes over her form.

A shower of coldness, as though a bucket of ice water has been dumped on her.

This is a promise she might not be able to keep.

There is a tiny vase with an even tinier carnation on the plastic table she is sitting by in the empty hospital cafeteria.

And that carnation might be the most beautiful thing Myka Bering might possibly have ever seen.

She gets up in a hurry, seized by the sudden feeling of claustrophobia,and does not hear the protesting sound the chair's metal legs screech out against the floor.

She hurries outside.

Flees the scene,so to speak.

And South Dakota greets her.

With its dusty mountains and a few oak trees in full leaf and a breeze that washes over her skin and she is going to miss it all so much.

So very, very much.

It's still quiet,a vacuum of sound, as Myka Bering sits down on the curb of a nondescript hospital parking lot in the middle of nowhere,in the middle of South Dakota, which due to popular opinion is absolutely nowhere.

And she cries and cries and cries.

And yet,despite the trees, despite the cars,despite the wind in the leaves, there is nothing but terrible,terrible silence.

Until her phone rings.


	2. Chapter 2

If Pete were a fancier kind of man, he might describe the vibes he has been getting since the beginning of memory in colors.

He might find seasons or weathers to explain sensations of senses that others lack, to portray an inkling of his premonitions.

„I feel a storm coming" might be something he would say in an overdramatic voice.

But Peter Lattimer,aside from not being overly fanciful is not one for too much self induced drama either.

In his mind he describes his vibes with sounds and smells and tastes.

Some are sweet, hopeful, like dark chocolate chip cookies,still in the oven, embracing the whole house with their aroma as they bake.

Others are bitter, like that accidental dark jelly bean in the midst of sweetness.

And yet others...

Others,he can't pinpoint.

There has been an uneasiness as of late, something he can't quite shake, and yet can't quite place either.

There have been these vibes before, and yet, this one is different.

There are actually several, Pete concentrates on the pit of his stomach,as he opens the refrigerator door.

Several and...

They weave together like the chords of a twizzler.

Yes,that's ,but the same shade,somehow.

Red.

But darker.

Suddenly Pete jerks up.

There it is,that feeling he couldn't shake, it's something about Myka.

He stands up straight, the plastic covered bowl with pudding in his hand forgotten.

It's Myka.

Who is not home.

He looks around frantically, as his hands begin to shake.

His hands never shake, no matter the vibe.

They never shake.

The pudding falls from his hands, the bowl landing upside down with a thud on the floor.

But Peter Lattimer couldn't care less.

This isn't a bad Jelly Bean vibe, it's something different, something tasting of blood and life and death and he rushes to the living room in a frenzied search for his phone.

He feels nauseous with fear and as he dials Myka's number he presses the back of his hand against his mouth to conquer the desire to vomit.

When the click at the other end of the line lets him know the call has been picked up, he suppresses the urge to cry with relief and runs his free hand through his hair.

„Myka!"he grins into the phone, but his voice is a bit choked up with the tears he is not crying.

„Are you ok?" he finally blurts out as the only thing that greets him is silence at the other end and the panic sets back in with a vengeance.

Finally,there is a sigh.

Myka knows that she is worrying him, even without particular vibes,she can feel her partner's anxiety roll through the phone.

It is time to find her voice again.

„Yes,Pete I'm...well, no, not .."she swallows thickly.

But how to find the words?

„Would you mind coming and picking me up at the hospital..parking lot?"

She is trying to make it sound as non threatening as possible, as though her car broke down and she simply is in need of a ride home.

And really, that's not such a lie,because she really is in no state to drive.

But her voice is a rough whisper, and she is almost sorry to worry him and she knows, that she just gave it away.

Somehow.

But his voice on the other end of the connection suprises her.

„Of course." Pete says.

And his tone is gentle, and loving and kind.

And she knows he'll be there, even though it's a two hour drive, her partner is hopping into his car to pick her up right at this moment,as though he would just step out to get a pizza.

Or two.

Myka's eyes begin to mist over again, and she had always thought it would be just a movie trope or a phrase in a book, that somebody could cry for that long, but she does not stop until she hears tires slide softly over the gravel in front of her a long time later.

In the end, she realizes, she does not even need to talk.

She is being bundled up quietly in her partner's arms and a little while later tucked away into the passenger seat.

Pete whips up South Dakota's only Jazz station for her, even though a Steeler's game is on, and they drive silently through the barren landscape.

At home, he fixes her a cup of hot chocolate and some hot porridge, one of the few warm foods he knows how to prepare, and parks her on the couch in the living room wrapped in a blanket.

The others are out, and they need to have this talk while they still are.

Myka is checking out the books on the shelf, counting off the ones she's read, the ones she hasn't,and the ones she'd like to read again.

And she wonders if she'll manage.

She remembers her father's warm laugh, when she told him as a little girl, that she'd like to read all the books in the world.

He had stroked her head gently, and told her, that humans don't live that had been in their science fiction phase at the time, and she didn't really believe him.

She does now.

There is a clink the bowl of porridge makes on the table and Myka feels it to be glaringly loud in her silence.

Pete sits back in the wicker chair opposite her, and folds his hands in his lap.

He crosses his legs in an attempt to strike an attentive listener's pose, but quickly remembers, that they were to be crossed the other way around, to signal openeness, and uncrossses them to rearrange them again,before doubting himself, again.

The chair creaks horribly as he puts his back's full weight against the armrest, and he almost topples over, before readjusting his legs yet again.

Myka can't help but smile.

It's still her Pete, and she's still the same Myka.

This is still the B&B.

They're both still Warehouse agents.

And they've faced quite a few things.

It's not just about sharing information, or exposing herself, or admitting something that she does not want to be true.

This is about filling her partner in on what they're about to face.

Together.

„I have cancer." Myka says evenly into the room and the words find themselves winding around the creaking of the chair.

Her eye twitches, but she's here now, leaning forward on her elbows, she's here now.

All Myka.

And she's here to catch Pete in the shock of it.

He stills immediately, his hands clasping each other so hard,they turn white at the knuckles and he quickly looks away to hide the tears in his eyes.

He nods, once,twice, and bites his lip before he turns around to Myka.

There are tears shining in his eyes.

But they do not even begin to mask the fear there.

He's terrified, but he only nods his head again, and again.

„Ok." he says quietly.

And then again, „Ok."

Myka reaches out a hand to cover both of his, which seem to be without any circulation by now.

„I am going to get surgery, and then have some chemo," she pauses, „and maybe radiation."

He blinks, still struggling, but he nods again.

„Ok." he looks away, as he reaches up his right to pinch his nose,screwing his eyes shut tight.

But it's to no avail, a couple of tears sneak out of the corners of his eyes.

„That bad,huh?" he says in a joking tone, turning back to her with a pained smile.

„Maybe." Myka is feeling her own eyes sting again with tears.

He nods again, his over exuberant nod, but his hand covers Myka's over his own.

It is very sweaty, but warm and soft.

„We've been through a few rough spots, and we'll...we'll.." words leave him.

This is a place where his vibes and her sharp wit won't help them.

But they're in this together anyway.

„Well, you know." he finishes with another determined nod, pressing his lips into a firm line of determination.

„Ok." Myka smiles his answer back at him.

Pete quickly gets up and wobbles for a bit on his feet, before catching himself and going back to the kitchen only to return with some maple syrup and honey.

„The first thing is, „he smiles at her, and it is almost unsure, as though he is trying not to scare her with this new ground they're about to tread, „that you..we need to take really good care of you."

He lathers her porridge with honey and maple syrup,both,before pouring a little of the syrup directly into his own mouth.

He finishes his acrobatics with a grin, as he usually does and Myka can't help but smile.

Back to normal,then.

Maybe a different kind of normal.

„And that means that I need to eat as many carbohydrates as I can?" Myka raises her eyebrow.

„Uh hoh!"Pete swallows another bite with a raised eyebrow in the affirmative.

And Myka digs in.

Because really,what's to care about her sugar intake,now?

They both laugh as she eats the porridge with a mock grimace at the exaggerated sweetness, but they're both too exhausted from this day to carry on with the heavier emotions.

Later that night, Myka is too wiped out from the day and the glucose to notice the shadow standing in her doorway.

For once, it is her who sleeps like a rock and Agent Lattimer whom sleeps proves elusive to.

It is what it will probably be like in the future and Pete pads over to her nightstand, where her cell phone is charging.

Years with the Marines and the Secret Service did provide him with some training at least, and he knows not to alert Myka to the sound of disconnecting her phone from the power.

He hides the display's light as he scrolls through her contacts and repeats the number he wishes to know over and over in his head.

Two numbers, actually, but he knows which one he needs to call.


	3. Chapter 3

It is two am, when Emily Lake's phone rings on the table by the couch.

Helena is awake immediately, figuring that work might have called her up to secure a crime scene or something of the sort.

Late Night crimes have been a non occurence in her little haven of Wyoming, and she feels a familiar thrill wash through her blood before she can stop herself.

But she,or rather her phone, does not recognize the number flashing on her display.

It is an unknown mobile number, which yet looks vaguely familiar.

Maybe this is altogether different business, she thinks as she unravels herself from the sheets on the sofa.

She and Nate had settled on this sleeping arrangement after that whole pesky trust issue had risen up when Myka had come to town.

They had not made up the guest room lest Adelaide should notice them not sharing the same bed anymore, and Helena had succesfully argued her earlier getting up for work, in the wee hours of the morning, and her late night reading habits, to be a lot more sensical in their cover than Nate who was initially adamant the he'd sleep on the couch, even though his alarmclock rang on par with his daughter's.

What Helena did not say and what Nate refused to acknowledge in truth was, however, that it was her fault.

And whoever's fault it is, ought to sleep on the couch.

She retreats into the kitchen where the sound would not carry through the house and covers the mouthpiece of her mobile as she speaks into it.

It would certainly not do for neither Nate nor Adelaide to know about the Regents.

But as it turns out it isn't them.

For the first time she is not sure how to answer her phone, the phone, any device used for immediate communication in between people who are not physically present.

She has been taught to always answer with ones full name, like a door, or like a soiree, the way the Europeans do it but it is a „Hello?" that she breathes into the mouthpiece, not wishing to give away anything.

Not being sure which name to answer with, she reverts to the bad American habit, which, so far she has refused to pick up, but admittedly, comes in quite handy right about now.

„H.G.?" A man's equally whispered voice reaches her ears.

It is Pete.

Pete Lattimer.

There is a soft chirping in the background, and she realizes that he must be outside in an as equally late hour.

„Yes." she breathes, and suddenly panic seizes her as her brain wakes up.

If Pete is calling her, something must be wrong with Myka.

„_Or the Warehouse._" a soothing voice in the back of her head calms her.

But she knows better.

Somehow she does.

„What is the matter, Pete?" her voice is louder now, the whispering forgotten.

She hears a sigh, and it sounds like relief.

She is the one person who would not ask a „What's up?" But an „What's the matter?" instead, and she is the only person who can help.

And he is so relieved to hear her voice.

Her polished British accent.

Her careful choice of words.

Helena G. Wells, not Emily Lake who hides under desks.

„Look, „ Pete wanders around in the garden of the B&B.

Maybe he had gone a little out of his way to not be overheard, but maybe that is a good thing, since he can't say this in whispers, anyways.

He runs his free hand through his hair.

They had actually taken some kind of two day course on how to relay bad news, "So here goes nothing", he thinks.

„Look,Helena," he begins again,"I picked Myka up from the hospital today, she's a total mess, and she's..she's.." he swallows thickly, aware suddenly, that saying it will make it be true, „she's got cancer." his voice cracks over the terrible word.

„What kind?" is the only thing Helena's mind flings back at her and her mouth voices it into the phone on reflex.

But she's not Helena G. Wells anymore.

She is nobody, nothing, not anything.

She's gone up in smoke and disappeared.

„I don't know." Pete wanders around the back yard, scratching the back of his head.

„But I guess it's pretty bad." it slips out before he can catch himself.

This is certainly not what they learned at that course he barely remembers.

He tries to soften the blow, „I mean I don't know, really, but she's going to have surgery, and chemo, and maybe radiation."

„Radiation?" the Brit's voice comes over the phone untypically high and quite shocked,and Pete despite, or maybe because of the weirdness and severity of the situation has to suppress a chuckle.

The concept of voluntary radiation onto a human being is something quite shocking to a hobby physicist from the last century. Or the one before that, rather.

He might not have read any of Helena's books, but he's seen a few of the movies.

And it is actually a little funny, even if it totally isn't.

„It's something we do, these days."he swallows, „sometimes."

„Like x-rays." he elaborates.

„Ah." comes an understanding nod through the phone, and Pete is, in that moment so glad to just be able to be speaking to someone else about this.

To not to have to carry this alone.

Both of them are quiet for a minute, just breathing into the phone, unsure of what to say or do.

He has a pretty good idea of what Helena is going trough right now, or maybe he doesn't have a clue, but he wishes he could help her, say the right things, but he can't.

So he just hangs on, the minutes on his cell phone rolling away as they're quiet with each other.

Keeping each other company in the dark.

After a little while he hears a scratching sound.

It's Helena's fingernails scraping over a surface. Maybe a kitchen counter by the sounds of it, and for the first time, he remembers, that this is the woman who almost, and by almost he means cutting it pretty close, destroyed the world in grief.

Maybe it wasn't the best of ideas to call her up in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere and break the news over the phone.

His eyes travel back to the house.

He's doing this for Myka,however.

„Helena." he says softly.

And the sound stops immediately.

„Yes, yes of course." he can almost see her shake her head at herself.

„Is this artefact related?" she asks, surprising him entirely.

„No, no..I guess it just.._is_." he says simply, and he can't see Helena's lips shake, but he can hear the sharp intake of breath.

This is also a bit late to realize that he just managed to awkwardky relate really, really bad news over the phone to a woman who's already lost a daughter, Pete thinks chagrined.

„Goodnight Pete." Helena manages to croak into the phone and turns it off immediately before the sob that has been building behind her words, claws itself up into reality and out of her.

She scurries into the laundry room, where she is sure to not be overheard, and breaks apart over the washing machine and the dryer, which both of them offer up cool and hard comfort.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:**Thanks go out to Orlando Intl. Airport's free wifi. I have been severely wifi blocked these past few weeks, so far as to sit in line to Hall H at comic con (one thing I cannot necessarily recommend) and not have wifi there either... Anyways, life got in the way, it will probably do so again. But this is more of an exploration of a situation than anything plot driven anyways,so I hope you'll uh, enjoy, despite the short .

* * *

It is quiet in the hospital, and Myka can feel Pete squirm in the seat next to her.

His half bare legs make a squishy sound against the plastic and she scolds him a little bit.

„Pete!"

He looks as nervous as she is, but the other patients awaiting their verdicts around them have no patience for his antics.

Obviously, Myka is the only one grateful for that terrible silence to be broken.

There are a bunch of magazines and newspapers on the table they form a seated square around, but nobody in the room is reading anything, not even she is.

The verdict.

There are a few novels she remembers, of judgements passed, of freedoms and punishments and executions, and she feels her nerves running up and down her arms and legs, her front and back like ants.

„Pete!" she hisses, as her partner and best friend wiggles around on his seat, yet again.

„These chairs are super uncomfy, Myka! And they keep getting stuck to the back of my legs and.." he looks up absentmidedly as yet another person enters the crowded room and stops, his jaw frozen midmotion.

„Pardon me, may I?" a smooth British accent addresses the older gentleman sitting right next to Myka, and he quickly surrenders his seat to the newcomer in their midst.

„Helena?" Myka whispers, and the other woman only nods, before sitting down right next to her on the newly vacated seat.

„Yes." she answers simply, wondering if this will indeed be the greeting she is to receive permanently in the future.

But alas, she does not deserve less for changing her name around so randomly.

She leans a bit forward to address Pete who is still frozen in his state of utter surprise.

„You are quite correct,Peter, the sitting arrangements here are quite the nuisance." she gives him a curt smile with a dark look, that could maybe even be translated into a thank you, or an affirmation of some sorts, and then nods quickly into the general direction of the rest of the people in the room in greeting.

The Brit ignores Myka's questioning glance entirely in contrast and simply leans back.

She has arrived, finally.

One bloody hell of a trip that has been.

But it stops being something, anything, about her right here and right now.

She takes a deep breath, draws herself up and together, and reaches her hand out to cover Myka's that's lying forlorny and forgotten on the agent's knee.

There's a decision that passes soundlessly over the younger woman's features and she,finally, exhales.

Myka mirrors Helena's movement and allows her tired body to fall quietly back against the wall.

They still do not look at one another.

There are issues and conversations and even, yes, beef, to be had, but this is not the time for any of those things.

Helena trains her eyes on the poster on the wall opposite them and begins to study its details, the most experienced of all of them in the art of waiting.

Myka slowly closes her eyes and gingerly lays her head on the Brit's shoulder, afraid, that this is a simple dream,amidst this elaborate,teribble nightmare.

But if this is a dream,she figures, she will dream it while she can, before the darkness settles in, and she relaxes visibly as her lungs begin to gratefully inhale Helena's characteristic odor.

While both women drift off into their own world, Pete is shaking himself out of his stupor and grins like a koala bear on too much Eucalyptus.

This is so much better than sugar.

Better even than sugar and butter and flour combined into cookies.

This is exactly what Myka needs.

And also, he is a little glad, that Helena has not gone off the deep end this time.

That she's here to get through this with them, with Myka, instead.

Whatever „this" turns out to be.

With that he remembers why they are here, and realizes,that only two minutes have passed since he checked the clock last.

The fear and anxiety are back from their brief break and Pete begins to shift uncomfortably on his seat again, making the poor thing squeak in agony.

„Pete",Myka says softly, not wishing to yell into Helena's ear,but not opening her eyes,either, and he stills.

At least for the next two minutes.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:**The title of this fic is a shout out to the song "As We Were" and the Myka/HG fanvid that goes with it, by the way. Great song, great vid. And sorry for the continued misery in this chapter. I hope you do enjoy it anyway :-)

* * *

Myka feels numb.

Except for the place where Helena's fingers are still tightly interlaced with her own.

Their palms are wet, and she assumes that it must have been her hands that have been sweating, but she suddenly realizes when they step back out into the sunlight, that Helena is holding her hand just a little too tightly.

She does not let her go as they near the column in front of the hospital, choosing to walk behind Myka instead as they thread through a group of oncoming people.

She does not let her go even when they get to the car.

„Shall I drive?" the Brit suddenly asks Pete who looks more than a little green behind the gills.

Both of the American Agents turn to her as one and say „No!" in a single voice.

And that finally breaks the tension that has been thick between them since the doctor's office.

„Why don't you..I mean, why don't you get in the back?" Pete asks as nonchalantly as possible, and while he thinks Myka and Helena are busy maneuvering their way into the SUV he throws up quickly into the shrubs that line the parking lot.

Myka, of course does notice, and so does Helena, but neither one of them comments as Pete rinses out his mouth with the bottle of water he has kept in the car.

A bottle of water that must have grown uncomfortably warm by now.

„So, hidy ho, off we go." Pete says.

But instead of the cheery sing song he has been vying for, his face is a bitter and hard grimace.

Myka can feel Helena's grip on her hand tighten even further for a moment, and she somehow manages to snap the safety belt of the back seat into place with a single hand, as does Helena.

It's as though the inventor is refusing to let her go.

Now, all of a sudden, when she did not mind blowing her off for a silly mirage of reality just a few weeks ago.

Anger rises in Myka, and she would like to yell at the pale, dark haired woman next to her.

But with a glance at the rear view mirror that shows Pete,who is wearing the same pained grimace from earlier and slipping on his sunglasses for the drive, her eyes wander over to the woman next to her.

And it might hardly be possible, but the Briton is a few shades paler than usual, her face unreadable.

She fishes in her jacket's pocket for her sunglasses and slips them on before dedicating her attention to the barren landscape that is passing them by,still refusing to let go of Myka's hand.

Myka feels numb, but she is eerily calm.

She knew, of course.

Dr. Kindler had filled her in on the different outcomes and options when he broke the news first, and even though she had been hardly listening, she had been warned.

And she'd had the time to digest things, or at least turn them over in her mind a few times.

Google them.

Unlike her partner and her.. partner.

She can hear Pete taking even, deep breaths, probably still trying to get a grip on the nausea that is trying to get the better of him yet again.

She wants to tell him that it's ok if they pull over.

That he'll be able to return the favor in a few weeks.

But the joke would not be well received.

Helena to her right, in comparison, doesn't seem to be breathing at all.

But there is a muscle that twitches in her cheek, probably from the strain of keeping her teeth clamped tightly together to keep them from chattering.

Myka diverts her own attention to the small town they're now passing through, and she latches onto the facts and the things that need to be taken care of.

She told Artie and Mrs. Frederic yesterday evening.

After dinner had passed at the B&B, she had driven out to the Warehouse for a requested meeting with her bosses.

She had secretly dreaded telling Archie, and had welcomed the opportunity to get some back up for him in the form of Mrs. Frederic.

It was also best to tell him in a place that he felt safe and welcome, and maybe a little professional in.

And for whatever sentimental reason, she had thought it would be easier to tell him in the place they had first met.

Archie had lost quite a few friends and agents over the years.

Turns out it doesn't make it any easier on him.

When Myka told him and Mrs. Frederic in the office she now considers home as much as the B&B,he had sat down in his little plastic chair, like a man punched and defeated.

His superior had placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, while Myka detailed the options and procedures that might await her and keep her from work.

The question of whether she would return to Colorado did not even come up once, however.

Mrs. Frederic had suggested for her to be on light base duty during her chemo cycles.

It would allow her to be close by for research and keep her from getting too bored or feel too left out,and yet give her all the space and time she could possibly want or need for herself.

Mrs. Frederic had known an unexpected amount about cancer treatments, chemotherapy cycles and the such, and Myka had been as surprised by that revelation as she had been about the usually so stoic woman's sudden kindness.

It had creeped her out more than her tendency to suddenly appear and disappear on them, to be honest.

So now, today Dr. Kindler has given her the details and dates of the procedures, and she will check them with Artie so they can work something out.

Of course the surgery will determine a lot more of their course of action, and that will take her out of business for quite a while by the sounds of it, but Myka is simply glad that while there might be lymphnodes affected, her lungs and brain and bones are cancer free.

She has been a little obsessed with not being able to breathe or getting crazy before dying, in true Warehouse fashion.

Of course these things might still happen, but she is going to cross that bridge when they get to it.

If they get to it.

If.

Dr. Kindler hasn't said anything about the prognosis or the chances she has for surviving this, and he probably won't until after the operation, and maybe, he'll keep mum about it even then, but Myka has gotten Claudia to hack her into some pub med and medscape accounts, under the cover of Warehouse research, of course and she will be able to make her own deductions.

If she wants to.

Knowledge is giving her back some of the power and it's making her feel less so wildly out of control of what is happening to her, but she sometimes does not know if she actually wants to know.

Everything.

She was standing in front of a poster about Ovarian Cancer in the hospital ealier,while Pete was off, going to pee for the 1000th time that day, and an elderly,well kept Lady had come by and simply muttered, „That one can be quite the Bitch." to her out of the blue before trotting on.

Maybe she, indeed, does not need to know everything, just this once.

Helena shifts a little bit and readjusts the iron grip on her hand into something a little gentler.

There are tiny, glistening tear tracks hiding in the small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, that are just visible underneath her large aviator sunglasses, and Myka's earlier anger is immediately blown away by the warmth of compassion that suddenly washes over her.

Another glance into the rearview mirror shows Pete wearing his battle face, completely ignoring the bypassing billboards for good and cheap fast food and she relaxes into the leather of the SUV.

There is nothing she can do for either of them.

Except,maybe..stay alive.

„Inshallah." she thinks.

It's Arabic for „If Allah Wills It."

According to the Qu'ran one should not ever make plans, not even speak of the future without adding the phrase to the end of the sentence.

Because there is fate,and there is God and everything that comes to pass is already written.

There is also a similiar concept in the Christian church, and the Spanish phrase Ojalá and the Portuguese Oxalá are derived from that original exclamation.

"Inshallah."

„Putting oneself into God's hands."

Hoping for that book of fate.

Hoping her name is not quite wiped from it yet.

„If God Wills it." Myka thinks.

And she hardly notices it, but she is praying to a God she does not know neither shape nor form of for the rest of the car ride.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N**: I apologize for the longish wait, and for this chapter not quite, not 100% turning out how I meant it to. I edited the chapter before this out entirely and completely rewrote the one after this, which I hope you will enjoy immensely. Where was I? Ah, is actually a hint of plot. Enjoy!

* * *

Artie can feel her standing behind him.

Of course the Warehouse would let her in.

Quietly.

To be honest, he has been expecting her, ever since Abigail called him up and told him that a century old British writer was in her dining room, having soup.

„Of course", he had said, and motionlessly sat in front of his keyboard, not managing to coax a single melody from it until she shows up.

Finally.

„Hello, Helena." Artie greets the shadow by the door and punches a single finger down onto a single key, and even though it is only a single note it sounds dissonant and not at all like what he has been looking for these past hours.

Same,same, but different.

Like..._everything_ these days.

A familiar bitterness rises in his throat.

The irony that the taste is in his mouth now before one of his agents has died, instead of after, is not lost on Arthur Nielsen.

The familiarity of it jars him.

Helena strides into the room, thinner and paler than he has seen her last, and his mind cannot help itself but flash back to the moment she had been about to die.

She had died with a smile on her lips, happy to have saved them, well, them and especially Myka, and it is a far cry from the way she is looking at him now.

He knows why she is here.

And the situation isn't,actually all that different, if one thinks about it..too much.

„The Staff of Aesculap," Helena begins.

„I remember passing it by in Warehouse 2 when I was looking for the Trident." and Artie can hear the self loathing in her voice for having taken the wrong stick at the wrong time.

„According to Greek Legend,it is imbued with the power of the Gods, Chiron's especially, and relieves one of any ailment.." she looks up at him now, her eyes wet, desperate...pleading.

„_Very different_," he thinks,his analytical mind gratefully latches onto the pecularity of one Helena G. Wells suffused in desperation, „_very,very different from when she was about to die herself_."

„Warehouse 2, as you may remember, Helena,„ he turns to get up and make them some tea, „has been rather...inconvenienced." he fumbles with the kettle while the Brtish Agent keeps her spot by the door.

„But it is only sand." Helena steps forward, he is not being logical.

„It is a removable object matter."

„Are you suggesting to fly to Egypt and unearth a two thousand year old Warehouse buried deep in the desert with your bare hands?" he doesn't mean to snap at her, but it's the bitterness, it is like a snake, waiting to strike at inopportune moments, and he simply can't help it.

Anymore.

„I was hoping for a little bit more back up and horse power driven gadgets," he notices how she holds her hands clasped before her, while she fidgets,"but if that is what it takes. Yes."

Her eyes find the floor.

„Grain by grain, if it must be."

And he hates his brain, hates to be the one who must remember _all _of it.

Even while she is standing before him, living and breathing and desperate, his mind throws her face back at him, smiling and dying.

He pours the hot water over the dried tea leaves, a remnant, actually, of Helena's at the Warehouse, and returns with the tray to the desk.

„I am afraid Warehouse 2 is out of the question," he begins softly, but motions for her to sit, anyway, implying, that there are options, that there are alternatives.

„After it almost overriding our Caretaker with Info, the Regents keep it tightly guarded and controlled. Or rather, its remnants." he pours some of the amber liquid for Helena and pushes the cup in her direction.

She sips from it daintily, the water still scaldingly hot.

Her eyes meet Arthur's over the rim of her cup.

And she realizes,with another heartbeat, that they are going to do this without the Regents' blessing.

There is a nod, as understanding passes between them.

„I shall go and see,"there is a deliberate pause, „Dr. Calder tomorrow, and make ahem, up with her" Artie elaborates,"and I shall be gone for..a few days."

Helena looks up as if to protest.

„Agent Wells, „Artie begins."Myka needs you here now."

There is a sudden vulnerability in the dark eyes as he continues.

„This is hard on her, and it is going to get harder,"he sighs,"and the Regents are keeping tight tabs on you, and by tight I mean extremely so."

„I am going to need some time,to..myself, and I am going to need you here to watch after her."

Helena rises to protest, but her boss only shakes his head.

There are a few beats of silence before he continues.

Meddlig is not in his nature, it is actually exactly contrary to it.

But he cares about Myka.

And he owes Helena.

And right now, the great and fabulous inventor, the woman that tried to destroy the world, the world famous author..looks just like any other human being, vulnerable and scared as she clasps at her necklace, a terrible habit that is set to remind him of the horrible events she has suffered through at half his age.

So he decides to meddle.

„She would not forgive you if you leave her now."

It's the soft mumble that Helena almost overhears and it does the trick to make her sit down without another sound of protest.

„And I know that you do not care if she forgives you, as long as she will live."

And true enough, those same words die in her throat as she means to voice them.

Artie holds up a single finger to keep her silence.

„However, I do."

And with suprise, he realizes, that he really does.

He takes another deep breath before quietly rumbling on, the Warehouse will hear him,the agent across his seat will hear him, but hopefully, the Regents won't.

„There is a chance, that she is going to make it without „artefact" interference."he lowers his voice even further and leans across the table so there will be no misunderstanding, „If all else fails,if science fails, if _I_, fail, you are allowed to do anything, _anything_ to save her," he wiggles his finger up in her face as he leans back into his chair and continues in a much louder tone "but until then, I order you to stay and take care of her, _Agent Wellls_." he pauses, lifting his cup up to his mouth, and adds almost absentmindedly as his attention wanders out of the window „Whatever it takes."

He has spent too long a time in the confines of the Warehouse.

It is time for him to spread his wings.

And take care of the family he never thought he would have.

The tea in his mouth harbors a strange sweetness, that he is rather grateful for.

Yes, it is time.

He grows very quiet for a long while as his eyes get lost among the shelves, along the aisles.

He is going to miss all of this so terribly much.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **Don't get too used to the frequent updates. I just wanted to post this, knowing I wouldn't have the chance to for the rest of the week. The little story about hearts was actually told to me a long time ago. Gotta heart hearts. Have a good week!

* * *

It is already dark when Helena returns to the B&B.

The first thing she notices as she walks through the quiet house, is the incessant chirping of the locusts.

The door to the garden is wide open and outside, doubtlessly, sits Myka.

Helena feels her throat constrict as the humdity and cacophony of summer remind her eerily of that feeling of oppression and drowning when Pete made that fateful phone call not so many nights ago.

It might have been lifetimes.

It might have been days.

It might have been one hundred years in bronze.

There is a fist that reaches inside her chest.

It bypasses her sternum.

It bypasses her lungs and vessels and solid matter.

And squeezes and squeezes around her heart.

When Christina died, the scientist in Helena had been astounded by the physicality of the pain.

In the 17th century, there had been a young man, run over by a horse carriage, his chest split wide open, and he had been brought before the king.

The monarch had laid his finger upon the dying man's beating heart, and asked him if he could feel the sensation.

The answer had been „No."

Centuries later, the science of anatomy had proven, that there are no afferent neurons leading from the heart to the sensible neuro cortex, meaning, in short, that the French King's simple experiment had been proven right.

A heart could not ache.

But it did.

And there was that fine,dark line,once, maybe a very long time ago, maybe not so long ago at all, where Helena had thought that it would claw it's own way out of her chest, and then there was that time where she was willing to help it find its way.

To be absolutely honest, she had never been even under the illusion, that she loved Nate.

That she was in love with the man.

She had liked him, he had been comfortable, unthreatening, pleasantly bearable.

It was Adelaide who had filled a void in her soul, it had been Adelaide that fit like a jigsaw puzzle.

Helena had been...content.

Italian Cuisine had become her new hobby, and Nate and Adelaide's praise of her cooking, Adelaide's little tales from school, brought her small, precious, bursts of happiness.

Maybe she had fallen victim to a great tragedy.

Maybe she was an anomaly, torn from her own time, and misplaced in this brave new world.

Maybe there were a million irreparable things wrong with her.

Maybe definitely.

But if she could not heal from her grief, and who could heal from the loss of a daughter brutally murdered, she could,maybe, pretend.

At happiness.

At life.

If she did not love too deeply.

If she did not ask too sincerely.

Pretend.

Only one of many to do so.

And if she slept very little, she would not have to dream of the blank eyes of the men she slew in revenge.

And if she stuck to Carbonara and Gorgonzola, there would be no red sauces that would stain her hands like all the blood that was invisibly stuck to it forever.

Christina's scarlet, darling blood, so much like her own...

Emily Lake.

Boring, old Emily Lake.

The step mother.

The father's girlfriend.

Whose major concers lay with where Adelaide needed to be shuttled to and when, and what would be befitting for dinner.

What they had had yesterday.

What they would be having tomorrow.

HG Wells could be left in another century.

HG Wells could be left,bronzed, in the heart of a woman in South Dakota.

A woman in South Dakota.

The woman that sits in the half shade thrown by the porch light.

The cicadas chirp like crazy, and the wind rustles softly through the leaves and moves a few of Myka's wild, dark curls over her immeasurably perfect face.

The Secret Agent draws the blanket she has wrapped around herself closer to offset the chill of a nearing autumn, and Helena's heart clenches in her chest.

That blasted organ, that is supposed, by science and history, to be emotionless, to be unconnected to the brain, is the bearer of an insufferable truth.

HG Wells,who has lain with countless men and women, who has laughed at love and joked about marriage, who has written bloody _books_ ignoring the very subject, is in irrefutable, terrifying and absolutely humbling love with Myka Ophelia Bering.

She has been in love with her from the very moment she had lain eyes on the American, and every line from every book she has read at impossibly late and early hours in Nate's house have been an ode to her and only her.

All of the books she has read in this century have been from Myka's reading list.

All of the lines her eyes wandered over, Myka has read herself at one time or another.

And knowing of her eidetic memory, Helena imagined reading them with her, separated only in time and space, but keeping each other company in mind and soul.

She read with Myka's eyes caressing each letter,she could feel Myka's mind celebrating phrases, her soft fingers turning the pages.

And while she was lying lonely in Nate's bed with him snoring softly beside her, or on his couch, anticipating Adelaide's footsteps on the stairs, Myka was in her bedroom at her parents' in Colorado, reading the same tales, feeling and thinking the same things..or entirely others, from her unique and wonderful perspective.

Time and Space, bridged by words and minds.

Time and space, such meaningless concepts to a traverser of time itself.

Bering and Son's.

Bering and Wells...

Myka did not just keep her safe in her heart.

She was well kept in Helena's own.

Or so she had thought.

So she had foolishly assumed.

Seeing Myka sitting in the B&B's garden with an ipad is a bit of a disappointment, actually.

Helena's mind has pictured her with books, the texture of old tomes under her fingertips, the smell of dust, the rustling of the pages.

But then Myka slides the tip of her finger ever so slowly, ever so tenderly over the gleaming glass of her handheld device,and the motion makes Helena inhale.

Green eyes flash up at the sound and they meet twin pools of black.

There is no pretending with Myka.

They are connected on a level that defies words.

The one person that knows her better than she herself does.

There are no shadows to hide her brokeness in the light Myka shines upon her, and Helena feels it again, the intensity, the reality of it all.

And where she had been afraid before of not being able to stand it, to crumble, she now wonders how she could ever have existed without it.

She is Helena G. Wells.

She is an author that Myka loves, and she has never been as delighted or proud of her writing before.

She is a crazy inventress that Myka tolerates and rolls her eyes at and she has never felt more acknowledged in her scientific endeavours.

She is a terribly grieving mother, a murderer,a horribly broken person, a villain, a specimen transposed from her time.

And yet, Myka finds the fragments in the ruins of her and glues them back together with the love in her eyes

With the love in her eyes.

And time and space fall away again, and Helena G. Wells is the prayer on the wind a teenage Myka has whispered into the brisk Colorado night for her significant other to come and find her, some day.

One day.

Today.

And Myka Ophelia Bering is Helena's, well, she is her Aramis, her Lady of the Sword, and she is the quite tragical Lady de Winter.

But she has returned.

She has returned.

And Helena feels her stomach twist, feels her mouth grow dry with anxiety.

With hope that maybe...maybe she can be forgiven, just one more time.

Just this one more time.

„I thought you had left again."

Myka's voice is rough, unhewn, in the darkness, and Helena wonders if she has been crying.

„I went to see Arthur." she replies simply, and realizes with startling clarity, that yes, she almost did leave.

To go to Egypt, to go and save her,to...go.

No matter where, but yes, she did, almost, leave again.

Schock and relief flood her simultaneously and she blinks twice,realizing the enormity of yet another stupid mistake that she has almost committed.

And as much as she hates to admit it, Arthur has been right.

She would not have forgiven her this time.

She would not have forgiven herself if Myka had been alone.

These days.

Helena G. Wells is a scientist by nature.

She likes to pull things apart, she likes to analyze them and put them back together, better than before.

Sometimes she writes about them.

Her distance of observation, her aloofness...those are things she desperately feels the lack of right now.

This is too real, too close, too,too...everything.

And yes, she wants to run.

But then her eyes fall on the chair that Myka sits upon,and that fist, that great, unforgiving fist of death and loss and despair reaches inside her chest again, and it reminds her, that maybe, maybe, she will have to deal with an empty chair in a few weeks, in a few months, in a few years, and no book in this world will ever bring her comfort again.

No place will ever be home.

There will only be this world,with a Myka shaped gigantic hole in it, and it will not know its terrible, terrible loss.

And it will only be her, Helena ...and this chair.

There will be no curtains, no stages and no mirages to hide behind anymore.

Because if Myka is gone...

That will be a truth there will be no hiding from.

„I love you." Helena says simply.

She says it and she turns around and goes to the kitchen to make some tea.

Because Myka's voice sounded rather dry, because Pete and the others will be home from Univille shortly, because tea is a constant she can rely on.

Her hands shake horribly as she fills the water kettle she had insisted on procuring when she had moved into the B&B a very long time ago, and suddenly she feels Myka's hands on top of her own, steadying her.

Her tears mix with the South Dakota tap water and she wonders briefly what about this wondrous invention of kitchen appliances sets her off so.

There is a sob that breaks out of her, and then another, and her Aramis spreads his angel wings and wraps her up in one of Leena's old, terribly soft, alpaka blankets.

They descend onto the kitchen floor and Helena is acutely aware of just how unfair it is of her to cry over the woman that is holding her, and that is actually the sick one, and the one that she should be holding instead, but the tears only fall harder, as she turns and Myka's smell invades her nose, her curls tickle her skin, her warmth, her very being, surrounds and embraces her.

Because realisation dawns on the great HG Wells of what a pompous fool she has been.

Time and space, she,the wondrous time traveler has so poetically foregone, are not mere illusions.

Because _This_ is reality, _this_, feels awfully good,_this_...is it. Is home. Is everything.

And she hates herself for how much time she has wasted with Myka over some idiotic,romanticized concept of time, space and reality. Thinking she knew _better_.

As per the usual.

Time is very real.

And they are running out of it.


End file.
